A cloud environment is where a customer rents out or leases a capability (like computing infrastructure, or development platform or software packages, etc.) instead of buying it. A micro-cloud environment is one where the rented capability or software package runs on a server located on the premises of a user instead of in the cloud itself.
Micro-cloud environments allow the extension of benefits of cloud computing to enterprises with data that cannot be moved to the cloud because of security, regulatory, bandwidth or data size issues. However, a micro-cloud environment adds the challenge of application management to existing cloud solutions.
For instance, if an application which is rented out has an issue, e.g., it encounters a failure, or needs any other management operation, that aspect cannot be handled remotely from a cloud installation. The reason is that the micro-cloud environment is generally separated from the cloud instance due to firewalls that are located to prevent communication between the cloud site and the application execution site. Therefore, traditional solutions fail to work.
Therefore, techniques for application management in micro-cloud environments would be desirable.